Where I am now

At this point in my life, I’m very fortunate to have a bunch of excess money every month. Since this is an anonymous blog, it’s great that I can discuss real numbers without worry of ruining my “stealth wealth” in my social circle (provided I keep this blog a secret from those who need not know).

I’m going to try to be as accurate as possible, but everybody makes mistakes. So, take everything here as a ballpark figure. I will refer to Mint for numbers, but it’s possible I mis-categorized something! So, here we go!

Let’s start with income, so you know just how much of a “slacker” I really am…or if I’m one of the upper class FIers that I claim not to be.

Salary: $3,036/mo or $36,432k/yrThis is post-taxThis also does not account for my 401K, which takes my “spending salary” down to $1,925.06/mo or $23,100/yr

Rental income: $650/mo or $7,800k/yr

Military disability: $1,335/mo or $16,020k/yr (temporary until healed)

Post 9/11 GI Bill: $783/mo for the next 18 months (temporary until schooled)

Total income for the next year: $5,804/mo or $69,648/yr.This will obviously stop when disability and school funding stops.

How much of that do I hold onto?

This is the more important number. This is money that is not going towards my goals, but I need to spend it to live or not live in squaller. Here is my spending for the last six months:

This is an average of $1,632/mo or $19,584/yr.

This is my regular spending. There are two people living off of this, since I live with my SO and I purchase everything that’s mutual (groceries, utilities). The poverty line for 2 people is $15,930 so we’re about $4000 above that line (in spending)…yet we live pretty damn lavishly. But, there’s plenty of time to get into that later.

This means that I only spend 28% of my money, and save a whopping 72% of my income!

Of course, that’s just for the next 18 months. When my income reverts back to its normal state, I will have a savings rate of 56%

Not bad! Also, considering I want a retirement “salary” of $28k/yr and I only spend $19k/yr, I should be golden. This takes care of what my main, ballpark normal income and expenses are…and generally what my savings rate is.

What do I already have saved?

It’s going to be useful to distinguish between 401K/IRA funds and taxable accounts, since we’re talking early retirement here. There will be a time where I will not be able to withdraw from the 401K and will have to withdraw from taxable accounts until I can. So, I will keep them separated.

Old 401K – $37,979.35

New 401K – $7,356.47

Traditional IRA – $341.54

Taxable accounts – $11,352.75

Total investments of $57,030.11.

This would have about $7000 more, but I needed new doors on my house because they were terrible. The doors are going to run about $3000/door, and I wanted $1000 of “buffer” cash available. They’re not the cheapest doors in the world, but I hope it will increase the warmth (literally) and curb appeal of the house.

What other assets do I have?

I have a duplex that I live in and rent out the other side. Worth about $113k.

I have a Prius, worth about $8k.

$11.6k in cash. You’re catching me at a weird time 🙂 I sold some stock in order to pay for my fancy doors for the house.

How about debts?

House mortgage: $-84,256.72

Credit cards: $-1,099 – I pay for everything on rewards cards

Current net worth? $104,501.43

I got that net worth from Mint.com. I might not have listed some small things like auto insurance bill, so the math on here won’t work out exactly, but that’s the current number that is accounting for everything.

I have a lot of work to do on my taxable investments, but the hard part is over (getting the right mindset and automating). Now, I need to optimize and stick with it.